


Dissonance

by TheRougeRogue



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Except she isn't even in her own body?, F/M, M/M, Modern Girl in Thedas, Multi, Slow Burn, Twin Trevelyans, Two Inquisitors, mentions of past rape/non-con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 18:27:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7065244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRougeRogue/pseuds/TheRougeRogue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Charlotte awakens, it's to a world and body that are not her own, with no memory of how she ended up there. All she knows is that she now has a voice inside her head-the voice of the actual owner of the body-she has a strange green scar on her hand and some guy named Zaiden, with a similar scar, insists she's his twin Wren.</p><p>Not knowing what else to do, she admits to not knowing what the hell is going on-she leaves out the tiny detail that she's from another world, the last thing she need is for them to think she's crazy-and plays the roll of the amnesiac everyone thinks she is. Hopefully this won't come bite her in the ass later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dissonance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an idea that's been floating in my head for a while that I finally got down to writing (and finally got the courage to post).
> 
> Currently un-beta'd, so if there are any mistakes feel free to let me know.

Everything was so green. Was I in a forest? Did Seth decide to plan a surprise vacation by taking me camping? No, no, I had a major recital coming up and I had just been promoted to first chair, there would be no way we would leave before that.

_No! Zaiden!_

If I was in a forest, surely there would be trees? It mostly looks to be rock and there’s an overwhelmingly oppressive green air, like the air itself was green. It caressed my skin, both in a soothing tickle and tense spark. Everything seemed real, yet at the same time not. Like I was floating aimlessly in a dream.

_Don’t leave me! You said you’d never leave me again!_

The voice sounded far off in the distance, echoing around me, filled with such heartache and loss. It pulled at my heartstrings. I found myself walking forwards, towards it, I assumed. It was hard to tell its direction. Or the direction of anything around here, really.

_Please! I can’t leave him. I need to go back. I need to go back to him._

A deep, all encompassing yearning engulfed me. Hearing this pain, this distress…I had to help.

_Please..._

_I am here to help._

***

Zaiden prided himself on his sharp wit and memory. Even after a heavy night of drinking, he could remember enough to answer the basic where and how, even when recovering from a massive hangover. Yet, when he came to, he had absolutely no idea why he was kneeling on cold hard stone and why his wrists felt as if they were shackled. Surely he would have remembered being decidedly more kinky than normal.

No, there was Wren. He remembered reuniting with Wren at the Conclave. There was no way he would ever forget the sight of his twin’s face after years of forced separation. He swore her smile could light a room.  But what had _happened_? Surely Wren would have kept him out of any trouble had he even tried to get into any. It wasn’t like the Conclave would have much in the way of alcohol, so that couldn’t be the reason for his memory loss.

Slowly, once he realized he couldn’t pull anything else from his memory save a few very large spiders chasing him and a woman reaching out to him, he opened his eyes. The moment they were open, he was greeted with a sharp pain in his left hand and a bright flash of green light. He grunted at the unexpected, undeniably painful jolt. It took considerable effort and quite a bit of teeth grinding to bite back a shout of pain. The moment the light died down, Zaiden could see a large, ragged green scar cut the length of his palm, glowing the same green light.

“What the…?”

Uncomfortable shuffling sounds signaled that Zaiden wasn’t, in fact, alone. His head jerked up slightly to see two guards in front of him with their swords pointed at his neck. A tense cough revealed that there had to be one more behind him at least.

“Oh, hey fellas. Ah, perhaps we can lower the pointy weapons? I quite like my head attached to my body.”

The guard on his right glared at him, and thrust his weapon slightly closer to Zaiden.

“Alright, alright. Just don’t mess the face up too much, yeah? It’s a money maker.”

Despite the relaxed smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth, Zaiden couldn’t deny his confusion, or the slight anxious unease, building beneath his ribs. What the fuck had he gotten into? And where in the Void was Wren?

Calm down, Zaiden thought to himself. Surely she’s talking with whoever you’ve offended, to get you released. She’s fine. She’s just saving your sorry ass.

Almost immediately after that thought passed through his brain, the door slammed open and two women stormed through. Well, the first, dark haired woman stormed. The second one, the hooded one, glided.

Zaiden blinked at the dark haired woman’s glare, refusing to back down from the silent challenge. He kept his smirk firmly in place.

The guards finally lowered their blades once the woman stood before him. The hooded one prowled around her, watching him. Under her gaze, Zaiden felt like his smirk was the half assed effort he knew it was.

“Everyone at the Conclave is dead, except for you,” the dark haired woman declared.

Zaiden smirk fell, and his chest went cold. It was suddenly harder to breathe. His thoughts cut short.

“….What?”

“You are the only survivor of the explosion at the Conclave. Explain yourself.”

Zaiden’s eyes stung. No. She had to be lying. _Everyone_ couldn’t be…surely not _every_ one. Then that meant Wren was…

Zaiden’s body collapsed forwards, forehead nearly knocking into the floor below him, would have, had he been more flexible. Wren’s smile flashed before his eyes again, still alight with happiness to see him and with the hope of a better future, a future where she was _free_. Now, if what this woman said was true, now she was enslaved to death.

They had only just reunited too, after years. He had also been filled with hope, hope that she would be able to come home with him, so he could fulfill his broken promise again. To unbreak it. But now…

But now…

He was left with a broken promise he could never mend.

“Everyone? Are su-ure _everyone_ died?” Zaiden tried to ignore how his voice broke.

“Did you have a particular target in mind, for your attack?”

“No! No. I just…have you found a woman’s…body…at least? One that…one that looks like mine? Same…mismatched eyes? Same bro-own hair?” He also ignored the single wet track that forged its way across the inner bridge of his nose, before hitting the floor beneath him. “…Shit.”

She was gone. His sister was gone.

The silence was deafening.

He had his answer.

For the first time in his life, Zaiden felt well and truly alone.

“Please just, if you call for my death in atonement for the explosion, just…do it quickly. I don’t want my sister to be alone anymore.” A second wet track followed the first, and his body jerked once with the force of a repressed sob.

“You admit to the crime, then?” The hooded woman asked, speaking for the first time.

Zaiden’s head snapped up. “ _No_. I attended the Conclave, partly on behalf of my family. Mostly, I attended to help my sister fight for her freedom.”

“She was a mage.”

“Yes.” Zaiden winced at the use of the past tense. “I had no reason to destroy the one event, with the one person in attendance who was willing to broker peace with the mages and templars. The one person who could free my sister.”

When the dark haired one approached him again, it was with less anger, but still a steely determination. “And this? Can you explain this?” She grabbed the metal bar shackling his wrists and lifted the glowing hand up so it was right in front of his face.

“Easy Cassandra. We need him.”

Zaiden shook his head. “I was with my sister, and then I remember running from these really large ass spiders. Then there was a woman, reaching out to me.”

“A woman?”

“It was a really fucked up dream, I’m guessing.”

“My scouts report watching you exit the Fade,” the hooded one said.

Zaiden blinked in shock. “The Fade? You can’t be serious.” He blinked a few more times when her face didn’t so much as twitch. “You’re serious. I have no idea how in the Void I did that then.”

“They say they saw Andraste behind you. Those that aren’t blaming you for the Divine’s death, that is,” Cassandra added.

Fuck. For whatever reason, Zaiden’s brain didn’t manage to equate blown up Conclave with the Divine’s death. Well, any hope of peace had completely flown out the window.

Zaiden groaned. Could this get any worse?

As if sensing his silent question, the hooded woman also added, “There is also the matter of the Breach.” At Zaiden’s confused look, she clarified. “A hole in the Veil. Rather large.”

“At the rate it’s going, it’ll swallow the world.”

He just had to ask, hadn’t he?

“Well, at the cost of the destruction of the world, for what it’s worth, I’ll help.”

Cassandra nodded, “Go to the forward camp, Leliana. We’ll meet you there.”

***

It was strange, finding a body with the voice. A tangible body, not like a body one would come across in dreams, a body that one could touch but not feel.

I had reached for her hand, offering my help, and the moment she reached back and our fingers touched, I could feel it. And in that moment, everything flashed a blinding white before fading and I found myself staring into a lighter green light. Some unnameable instinct drew me towards it. I just knew that this had to be the way out.

I could touch the source of the light. It felt solid like a heavy pane of glass, and about as transparent too. Through it, I could see what looked like the ruins of a castle, dusted with a glowing red crystal that grew around the ruins like moss. But it wasn’t abandoned either. There were archers and swordsmen, some even had…pole arms? And they all seemed to be encircled around my perch. Some were looking up at me warily, others talking amongst themselves. The rest looked up to watch the small group entering the ruins from the upper floor.

Almost as if triggered by the new group’s arrival, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and I could feel electricity crackle in the space around me.  A rock dropped to the bottom of my stomach in dread.

The group descended closer and lower to my perch. As they did, the vibrations of a low, growling voice vibrated the air, as a spectral figure of a…woman?...appeared straight in front of me.

The group all looked up to watch and I caught sight of the human man. The other two men definitely were _not_ human.

_Zaiden!_

The name was exclaimed within the confines of my mind, but I found my lips silently forming the word alongside the exclamation.

What the hell?

_He’s okay! Zaiden is okay! Thank the Maker!_

What the fuck? What was that voice? It sounded a lot like the voice woman who accepted my help.

A loud growl echoed behind me as Zaiden lifted a glowing green hand towards me. Finding the growling a slightly larger threat, I turned around to find the source of it.

A large horned… _monster_ was charging up behind me, crackling with purple electricity. Thoughtlessly, I scrambled backwards against the green glass in a desperate attempt to escape.

Only, it was no longer there.

I fell through it and into the ruins I had previously been observing.

As I fell, I heard that loud roar, and watched the monster jump through the now open hole after me.

 “Wren!”

I heard a male voice scream out, as I watched the green hole I fell from get smaller and the monster falling after me became all I could see. I couldn’t tell when I’d hit the ground, but I knew the moment I did, at absolute very least, something was going to break. At the worst, well…I really liked being alive thanks, and I would really like to keep it that way. But I had very little control over that at the moment and had to settle with hoping for the best.

A sheer blue glow engulfed me briefly before disappearing, seconds before I closed my eyes in anticipation of hitting the ground and the pain it was cause. The moment my body did hit the ground, the air was violently slammed out of my lungs with a gasp. But…there was no pain.

I didn’t get a moment to wonder why I felt no pain from an extremely high drop because the monster that fell out of the hole with me had landed overtop of me. I swore the ground shook beneath its massive feet. If I had had any left over air in my lungs, I’m sure I would have screamed. I was still desperately trying to pull air back into my body at that point though, leaving me to gape wordlessly.

Wide eyed, I stared up at the monster as it stared down at me, a low, baritone laugh echoing around me. Instinctively, I flinched away, but I couldn’t scramble away fast enough to avoid the large clawed hand that came down towards me.

By that point, I had managed to pull enough air into my lungs to let out a half hearted cry of alarm and fear as the creature encased me in its maw of a claw and lifted me in the air. Fear clenched at my chest, as I flailed my arm and legs at the creature's massive hand in hopes of loosening its grip so it would let me go. In horror, I watched as the ground drew away from me again.

The hand squeezed around me in retaliation of my attempts to fight back, laughing its chilling laugh. I cried out as its grip became almost impossibly tight around me. It felt as though it was trying to squeeze out all my insides. I feared that if it squeezed any harder, I would pop.

“Wren!” I heard that voice yell out again. Was he yelling it at me? My name wasn’t Wren. I was Charlotte.

The monster turned me so I could see its face, see its many creepy, beady eyes. How could a creature have so many?

Once again, I tried to pull myself from its grasp, but…I got the sense that it was smirking at me.

Suddenly, an arrow was shot at the monster, skimming by my face as it did so, wedging itself between two of the many eyes. Alarmed, I turned to look for the origin of the arrow that nearly hit me, only to find many archers with arrows notched and aiming at the monster. Looking down I found a small group of people, people who had previously been on the sidelines, now beneath the creature’s feet, hacking at it with a variety of weapons and...brightly coloured light. Was that ice I saw just now, shooting from that man's hands?

The monster seemed to find the group of people attacking it a much more pressing issue than I was, for I barely got the chance to blink before I was thrown through the air like a rag doll.

The last thing I saw, before I impacted something hard, was a mahogany haired man’s-the one that voice had called Zaiden-head turn as he watched me fly through the air, a sword and shield raised, his mouth opening again, to yell out, “Wren!” for the third time.

My head hit the hard surface behind me and everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can also find me on tumblr as the-rouge-rogue.


End file.
